Chapter 2
December 1998
It's New Year’s Eve and rockets scream across the rain slicked rooftops and burst into showers of silver stars. Harry watches, mesmerised, as those dazzling sparks fall to Earth and fade. He can hear firecrackers whizzing and banging in the air, and explosions of light, reflected, fill the dark shop windows of Diagon Alley.
He has to look away when an emerald green rocket streaks across the sky, illuminating the night like a celestial snake. The smell of smoke burns in his memory. He remembers screams. He remembers the Dark Mark seared into the heavens.
Hermione and Ron look away too, and Harry realises that he is not the only one still struggling.
So why does he feel so alone?
The crowd begins to cheer and Harry looks around at the drunken revellers packed into the damp cobbled street outside The Leaky Cauldron. Robes and hats of every colour cloth. Cold hands clutching half downed pints of Butterbeer. Friends huddled together to ring in the New Year.
The countdown begins.
‘Ten! Nine! Eight!’
A New Year, thinks Harry. A better year, perhaps .
‘Seven! Six!’
A year to move on. To let go.
But Harry doesn’t know how to let go.
‘Five!’
Harry is obsessed with the battle, with the war, with the past.
‘Four!’
With everything he didn’t do.
‘Three!’
Everything he couldn’t stop.
‘Two!’
Everyone he couldn’t save.
‘One!’
Ron and Hermione turn to each other. Their smiles are beautiful. Grateful for one another, for love amidst so much loss.
‘Happy New Year!’
The sky explodes and his friends embrace as the clock outside the pub strikes midnight.
‘Happy New Year,’ Ginny says, beside him.
Harry looks up at the glittering darkness above.
‘Happy New Year,’ he replies.
But all he can think about is how he’ll get through another year.
*
January 1999
Harry sits at the end of his bed - Percy’s old bed, because how could he take Fred’s - and folds the sweater in his lap. The knit is woollen and heavy, too heavy, but he’ll need it in Azkaban.
He runs a finger along the lines and loops that have been knitted with such care by Molly. It is more than a sweater, it is woven with love.
He should be grateful, he thinks, for all that he has. So why can’t he move on? Why can’t he let go of everything that’s happened?
Everyone else is rebuilding their lives, but Harry is still living in the past.
That’s why he asked for the Azkaban posting, he supposes. He doesn’t want to be here. He wants to be there, in the past. In Azkaban, time stands still. They will be there. Old enemies, old memories. He can keep an eye on them. He can make sure that everything is under control. That nothing bad ever happens again.
There is something else too, but he can’t quite put his finger on it.
Someone knocks on his door, and Harry looks up from the sweater, from his thoughts.
‘Harry?’
It’s Hermione. She looks older, wiser. If Hermione could be any wiser. Her brown curls are pulled back into a barrette, and she is wearing a cornflower blue sweater. It is also one of Molly Weasley’s creations.
‘You’re packing?’ she asks.
Harry nods and stands up, placing his jumper in the open bag that sits atop his bed.
‘Are you sure about this?’
Harry shrugs. He doesn’t know. He doesn’t really know what he’s doing.
Hermione steps into the room and closes the door softly behind her. It groans with age and in protest, as all things in the Burrow do.
‘Ron told me that you asked for it. That you asked to go,’ she says.
Harry doesn’t look at her when he replies. ‘Yeah,’ he admits. ‘I did.’
‘Do you think it’s a good idea?’ Her tone is probing, but not judgemental, and Harry appreciates her for it. ‘I’d find it hard,’ she goes on, ‘to be there, with all of them.’ She does not say the words. Death Eaters.
Harry lifts a pair of brown corduroy trousers from his wooden dresser and places them inside the bag, atop Molly’s sweater.
‘I don’t know,’ he replies, ‘but I think I need to do it. Maybe I just need to see that everything is under control.’
Maybe then he can stop dwelling, stop obsessing, stop dreaming of it all happening again.
Maybe then he can let go.
Hermione smiles at him. It is a sad and understanding smile.
‘Okay,’ she says. ‘But if it’s too much -’
‘I’ll ask to be reassigned,’ Harry says.
‘- you can talk to us,’ Hermione replies.
She’s telling him that they are there for him, but Harry already knows that. They’ve always been there for him.
He nods and the light of the lantern overhead dances across his features.
‘Thank you,’ he says.
But he doesn't want to dredge everything up again for his friends. And he doesn’t know how to talk about the things that he’s feeling.
So he keeps it all inside.
*
Harry wakes to sweat drenched sheets and blood thrumming in his ears. He blinks hard into the darkness. There is nothing, only pitch black emptiness. It engulfs him, like the void in his heart, and he feels panic rising in his chest like the swell of an angry tide.
He sits upright in his narrow bed, fumbling for his wand, for light, for relief.
‘Lumos,’ he whispers.
A tiny orb of cool blue light blooms from the tip of his wand and ripples out into the darkness. Shadows stretch across the floor, elongated and haunting. The dresser in the corner looms like a beast.
Harry's hands tremble as he gasps for breath.
He dreamt of Azkaban, of stone cells and iron bars. The smell of ocean spray and wet rock. Only it wasn’t the Death Eaters abandoned in that terrible fortress.
It was his friends, his loved ones, all who he had lost. Alone, forgotten, ravaged by time.
*
Harry is an early riser. He likes the hush, the peace that he can’t find in his own mind. Plus it’s easy to be an early riser when you can hardly sleep.
He stares at his bag when he wakes. The leather on the handles is cracking and the brass zip is dull with age.
Is he really going to do this?
His nightmare lingers in the corners of his mind, like a Boggart in a dresser, taunting him.
Harry unpacks his bag. He almost goes downstairs to fire-call Robards - Gawain - and tell him that he’s changed his mind. But he doesn’t.
He repacks his bag and gets ready.
Arthur, Molly, Ron and Ginny are waiting for him when he comes downstairs.
Molly has prepared breakfast and the kitchen table is laid with colourful crockery and mismatched napkins. Bacon sizzles on the stove and plates of pancakes and scrambled eggs are piled next to a jug of orange juice and cups of freshly brewed coffee. The Christmas tree is still standing in the corner. Its branches are wilting now, and its needles are dry.
‘Molly,’ he says, ‘You shouldn’t have.’
‘Nonsense,’ she replies, as she weaves between the stove and the table in a blue polka dot apron. ‘Sit, sit!’
Harry sits, and Ginny pours him a glass of juice.
‘You’ll need a good breakfast to get through the week,’ Ron says. His tone is curmudgeonly but Harry knows that he is not judging him. He just doesn’t understand, because Harry doesn't know how to explain it.
‘That you will,’ Molly agrees. ‘That you will.’
Harry expected her, or Arthur, to try and talk him out of it. But they did not, have not. At least not yet.
He smiles at their kindness.
‘Eat!’ Molly says, and he does.
*
Harry stares at the neatly written instructions one last time before he pockets them, and lifts his bag.
‘Okay then,’ he says. ‘See you soon.’
The Weasleys nod and wave, if reluctantly, and Harry steps into the emerald green flames of the fire.
‘Port Abbadon!’ he says, and the world falls away.
*
‘Ministry or visitor?’
Harry is still brushing Floo powder from his clothes and he can't see who is speaking to him until he looks down.
It's a goblin. His bald head barely reaches Harry’s waist, and he is clutching a clipboard in his long white fingers. A pair of half-moon spectacles rest on the bridge of his pointed nose and he is looking impatiently at Harry.
‘Ministry or visitor ?’ he repeats in his odd little voice, and then his expression flickers and changes to one of realisation.
‘Oh,’ he says. ‘Mr Potter.’
Harry looks at his feet. He's never gotten used to being recognised.
‘I’ll need to see your pass, of course,’ the goblin says.
Harry obliges and pulls his Ministry identification from his jacket pocket. It's only six months old and it's already crumpled at the corners. His portrait smiles up at him and, for a moment, Harry doesn't recognise himself.
Was he happy once?
The goblin prises his ID card from him and holds it up to his nose, peering closely at it.
Harry takes a moment to look around. He is in a large nondescript waiting room with sterile white walls and a bank of wooden chairs. A coffee table sits nearby, topped with a wilting pot plant and a dog-eared copy of yesterday's Daily Prophet. Three oversized fireplaces jut out from the wall behind him and the parquet flooring in front of them is covered in soot and footprints.
‘Yes, that all looks correct,’ the goblin says then, looking from his clipboard, to Harry's ID card, and back again. ‘Welcome to Port Abbadon. The boat is in twenty minutes.’
Harry wonders how many boats there are, and how long the journey is, but he doesn't bother to ask. The goblin has already hurried back to a small desk near the waiting room door, and is rifling through a mountain of papers. Harry gets the impression that he's in no mood for small talk.
He looks around and chooses a seat opposite the only window in the room. The glass is thin and he can feel the draught of the salty coastal air beyond.
He stares out at the sea as he waits. It is grey and wild, its waves topped with thick white foam.
What is he doing?
The furthest fireplace flares into life again and a tall, angular figure steps out of the brilliant green flames.
‘Ministry or visitor?’ says the goblin, rushing over with his clipboard.
‘Visitor,’ says a familiar voice.